Date: January 7, 2003
To: UltraRunning
From: David Kamp (Director)
Subject: Recover From the Holidays Fat Ass Fifty, Saratoga, CA Version;
December 28, 2002; 50 Km, Trails.
At the start, up on Long Ridge, the powerful zephyrs from the west and south threatened
rain. We got spanked sideways by gusts on a couple short, muddy descents, and then,
much to our surprise, we were pushed uphill on the short ascents. It was uncanny. At
lower elevations, among the giant redwoods, it was pleasant running, save for all the
blow downs and associated trail litter. Slate Creek had its usual crossing point rearranged
a bit, and late in the afternoon, when the hard rain came, ice-cold water gushed over the
trails in small streams and formed giant puddles. Our finishing percentage suffered at the
hands of the weather.
Name Elapsed Time
Vladimir Gusiatnikov 5:25
David Kamp 6:25
Jeff Collins 6:59
Catra Corbett-McNeely 6:59
John Stotts 7:42
Sally Smith 8:14
Jim Winne 8:14
Clement Choy 8:14
17 Starters; 8 Finishers; 47%
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For historical interest, the original Recover from the Holidays Fat Ass
Fifty was created by Joe Oakes, of Los Altos, CA. Joe now lives in
Portland, OR. In the early '80s he needed a qualifying fifty mile run for
his entry into the Western States 100. The Half Moon Bay to Santa Cruz
Fifty Mile Relay appeared on the calendar, so Joe registered himself as five
runners and completed the race as a sole competitor, qualifying for Western
States. Joe's idea was to stage an ultra over the same course, however the
format was decidedly low key: "no fee, no aid, no awards and no wimps. The
idea was to get the running community together in midwinter after the
holidays for a little running mischief. The concept caught on, and now
there are Fat Asses all over North America in the days after the winter
holidays. Many have gone to the fifty kilometer format, but the idea is the
same.
We in the San Francisco Bay area adopted the run, but the Highway 1 format
was not to our liking. For a few years we staged it as a Foothill College
to the Pacific Ocean fifty mile trail run, keeping the Fat Ass Fifty
tradition alive. One year, while training for Western States, I created the
present course, a fifty kilometer loop, after studying trail maps of the
area. On my first training run on the loop by pure chance I ran into Kathy
D'Onofrio-Wood, winner of Western States in 1986, running a FIFTY-TWO MILE
TRAINING RUN (!) which included the present course plus some extra credit
miles. Since then I've affectionately called the course the "D'Onofrio-Wood
Loop." I had never known of anyone to train over such distances. Then I
tried it a couple times, and you know what, it's possible, barely, to run
the thing on a spring day with lots of daylight.
David Kamp